Anatomy of a deal: How the Rockets landed Jeremy Lin

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The meeting was no different from so many others, but it would change everything.

Playoff hopes that had swelled with a four-game sweep of a road trip a week before had crashed. Another offseason was certain to come early.

The Rockets’ front office — including general manager Daryl Morey, vice president for player personnel Gersson Rosas and vice president for basketball operations Sam Hinkie — gathered in the conference room on Toyota Center’s second floor April 17 to begin mapping out the team’s free-agent strategy.

Talks continued over the coming months, but one decision never changed. The Rockets had decided they would pursue guard Jeremy Lin as a restricted free agent. They would not ignore the likelihood that the Knicks would match any offer he received but would instead try to come up with a way to get him back.

“We planned the free-agent targets we were going to go after at that meeting,” Morey said. “He was high on the list. We thought that strategically moving (Kyle) Lowry might be the right choice because we thought we could get the most for him. We thought turning him into a lottery pick would be the right thing. We did anticipate we might lose Goran (Dragic) because we knew he was going to be pursued by multiple teams and if it was a deal we were not comfortable with, we knew we’d have to walk away. We were going after Jeremy no matter what.”

The Rockets had followed the 6-3 guard from Harvard since he dominated the Ivy League. They were at the 2010 Las Vegas summer-league game when, playing for Dallas, Lin outplayed Washington’s John Wall, and they tried to sign him.

“He was great,” Morey said. “We were pretty solid at that position. We do have to prioritize what we’re looking at. We talked to them about potentially doing a deal. Golden State outbid us — a larger guarantee. They beat every team in the league to get him and did a great job signing him. I still think to this day they deserve the most credit of quote-unquote finding Jeremy Lin. They were the highest on him early.”

Acting fast

When the Warriors waived Lin before last season to free salary-cap room to sign DeAndre Jordan to an offer sheet, the Rockets “immediately put in a claim” and brought him to camp. They cut him after 12 days.

With no idea of how Lin’s career would take off, Morey said there were thoughts that he would not be difficult to bring back as a free agent.

“When I talk about us making a mistake, it wasn’t a mistake about him being good,” Morey said. “We thought he could be an NBA player. The mistake was we didn’t anticipate how good. Even though our analysis indicated he could be great, probably not this great, we did not anticipate he could be as good as he was in that stretch. That was the mistake.”

Talks of trading Lowry picked up in the days before the draft, but a deal was not completed and the Raptors focused their attention on signing Steve Nash. Morey had decided that if not for that deal he happily would bring back Lowry as the starter despite Lowry’s stated issues with coach Kevin McHale.

“We said, ‘Hey, we can see how this might go where we might have a need at point guard,’ ” Morey said. “I walked them through how we might have a big enough need. We thought he was worth that money, but to have it, we probably needed other things to happen.”

Morey and McHale met with guard Eric Gordon the next day and a day later met with Dragic. Talks ended with the Rockets unwilling to give Dragic a player option for the fourth season of his contract, virtually assuring he would move on.

A meeting with Lin was set up for July 4. McHale had a previous commitment but spoke with him that day by phone, telling him again how impressed he had been with him, how he enjoyed his success in New York and how he would be used if he returned.

While they talked, Nash agreed to go to the Lakers in a stunning sign-and-trade deal with the Suns. Morey knew then the Raptors would renew talks to land Lowry, but he insists he would have continued the pursuit of Lin even if Nash had gone to Toronto and Lowry remained a Rocket.

“I’d have loved having Kyle back,” Morey said. “If we could get something fantastic for Kyle, we had to do it. I’m all about positioning ourselves to contend for a title. That’s not BS. Kyle I think is a fantastic player. We were going to trade him if we could get something great, but having him back as the starting point guard I was perfectly fine with.”

That night, Morey, Hinkie, Rosas and assistant coach Brett Gunning met Lin, Tanner and Montgomery in a private room at Fleming’s Steakhouse and began the pitch to bring him back.

After dinner, Morey and the agents met at the Four Seasons and agreed to an offer sheet worth $29.8 million over four seasons, with the fourth partially guaranteed. As they met, Dragic finalized his agreement with the Suns.

The Rockets knew that with Toronto unable to land Nash, the Lowry trade probably would go through.

The Rockets finalized the agreement to send Lowry to Toronto the next day, July 5, leaving the Rockets with no experienced point guard and increased urgency to sign Lin. But it seemed certain the Knicks would match any offer he would get.

Alexander weighs in

“After we came to a rough agreement on that deal (with Lin), Goran (leaving) became certain,” Morey said. “We were all concerned about not having a point guard. It was Mr. (Leslie) Alexander’s idea to get more aggressive.”

In the next few days, the Rockets reworked the offer to $25.1 million over three years, all guaranteed. Heavily back-loaded, it would force the Knicks to pay $14.9 million in the third season of the contract, the first season of the more punitive luxury tax. For the Rockets, each season will count roughly $8.4 million toward the salary cap and luxury tax.

“We talked about it internally for a while,” Morey said. “We brought it up to his agents, asking if they would be OK with more money, and shockingly, they were open to it.”

More than a week later, on July 13, Lin flew to Las Vegas to meet with Morey and McHale for four hours in a suite at the Golden Nugget and sign the offer sheet.

Within hours, it became clear that delivering the offer sheet to Knicks general manager Glen Grunwald would be a challenge. Grunwald refused to answer the door to his room at the Mandarin Oriental or come to the front desk to accept the offer sheet. The Rockets sent representatives to Knicks practice and later to their game, but Grunwald did not attend and would not set up a time to meet.

Having just completed the sign-and-trade that sent Marcus Camby to New York, the Rockets had the contract information ready for the Knicks’ attorneys and emailed Lin the offer sheet, also sending it through overnight delivery to the Knicks’ offices in New York. Still, they tried to get a ruling from the NBA about when the offer sheet would be considered to have been received, starting the three-day period for the Knicks to match.

“We asked the league for help,” Morey said. “They gave us advice. We did what they suggested. They say they consider it a team-to-team issue.”

The Rockets took the position the sheet was received at 11:59 p.m. EDT. The Knicks did not dispute it, but at the time they were completing talks to acquire Raymond Felton, indicating they would not match the offer sheet.

But Morey was skeptical.

“I knew about that two nights before,” Morey said, “but I absolutely thought they would match the whole way.”

Reports surfaced that Madison Square Garden chairman James Dolan had signed off on letting Lin walk. Morey did not believe it.

That night, before the deadline, a Knicks spokesman sent text messages to media confirming the decision. Morey still was not sure.

Grunwald called Lin, 23, and told him, in a conversation that lasted less than a minute. Tanner texted Morey with the news.

“I had seen the reports,” Morey said, “but the only thing I thought was concrete was when Glen told Jeremy. I knew then they wouldn’t tell Jeremy unless it was done. That was the first time I really thought it. We got him.”